Monday, June 14, 2010

Riegrovy Sady

Quick Guide

Riegrovy Sady's Beer Garden is one of the largest and most popular outdoor pubs in Prague. It is located in the park Riegrovy Sady between the districts of Zizkov and Vinohrady in Prague 2. It’s open from early April until late October and usually crowded on warm spring/summer days, as it’s a popular meeting place for Czechs and foreigners alike. Football tournaments like the Champions League, Euro Cup, World Cup, and other sports events can be viewed on their big projection screens. You can have a grilled klobasa, steak and other snacks with your beer.

Location: multiple entries, the park is located in the heart of Vinohrady.

Getting there:By underground, take line A to station Jiriho Podebrad z, then the square of the same name to the street and then right into Manesova and Třebízského.By tram, there are the following possibilities:
11: get off at station "Vinohradska trznice" and from there take the street Trébického
10: 16: get off at station "Vinohradska vodárna", down to the square Jiriho z Podebrad and then follow as indicated above.
9, 5, 26: get off at the station "Husinetska" (opposite the football stadium of Viktoria Zizkov), go through the streets Krasova, Kubelíkova (turn left) Slavíkova (turn right) and Na Svihance.

The location

Built in 1903,Riegrovy Sady (the park) extends over ten acres on a small hill overlooking the New Town and the area around Wenceslas Square. There are lawns and a children's park. Especially nice when the weather is nice, however the place is easyly crowded.Right at the top of the bar, next to the space for children, there is the famous beer garden. Observe the Czech-pragmatic setup : next to the bar the kindergarten - family fathers (and some mothers too) can go and relieve their boredom and thirst with some cold hops drink while keeping an eye on their off-springs.

Riegrovy Sady is named after a Czech philologist and publicist who has lived in the nineteenth century, Frantisek Rieger. He was one of the spiritual leading figures of the national Czech movement claiming the political autonomy of the Czechs within the Habsburg Monarchy.

The Riegrovy Sady beer garden is a huge beer garden which can probably go smoothly 500 people. When you go to the park at night, you can find it without problem by following the noise.

There is a large screen usually showing football and hockey.During the hockey world championships, try going to see a Czech-Russia (the " El Clásico" of the ice-hockey world) or the "local" derby Czech-Slovakia.

On summer evenings you can stay for hours beer after beer talking and having endless discussion about beer or politics - If are you're hungry meanwhile - there are sausages for 35 crowns. If you are hungry only ...

One really wonders why there are no such places in France, where the weather is nice.Perhaps because real estate is expensive, and well there would inevitably be a mess, for it's true : you need some civic sense in order to be able to have 250 people being drunk in a rather small place.